Current view: Text account
Site description (2001 baseline):
Site location and context
Two of the five northern islets of Mauritius, here considered together as they lie only 700 m apart, but are 6.5 km from other islets. Both are comprised of coralline sand on basalt lava-flows. Gabriel (42 ha) is a flat islet, with semi-stabilized dunes and a small area of raised coral, but no cliffs. Vegetation is open scrub or grassland. Flat Island (253 ha, the largest of the northern islets) is also mostly flat, but has a single hill topped by a lighthouse. The vegetation is heavily modified, mostly scrub and grassland dominated by exotics. North of Flat Island is Pigeon Rock, a spectacular bare rock stack, used by resting, and perhaps occasionally nesting, seabirds. The islands are visited by local people for recreation (up to 200 per day in 1993), fishing (often camping overnight) and poaching seabirds. More tourists visit the reefs offshore, but few venture far on land. The lighthouse station on Flat Island is abandoned, as are the other buildings and tracks, which date from when the island was used as an isolation area for cholera sufferers and an animal quarantine station.
See Box for key species. No threatened or restricted-range bird species are present, but the site is included because of its high potential for rehabilitation and exotic mammal eradication.
Phaethon lepturus and
Puffinus pacificus nest on both islands (at least 250 pairs of
P. pacificus in 1993), and also
Phaethon rubricauda on Flat Island; rehabilitation could allow large population increases and perhaps also establishment of other species, such as
Pterodroma arminjoniana.
Non-bird biodiversity: Plants: Psiadia arguta (Gabriel; R), Latania loddigesii (E) and Pandanus vandermeerschi (both islets; V); 60% of plant species recorded on Gabriel Island are native. Reptiles: Gongylomorphus bojerii (both islets; endemic to Mauritian islets), Nactus coindemirensis (Pigeon Rock only).
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
Both islets are reserves, but attracted little attention until 1993, when recommendations were made for a multi-use management policy, including wildlife conservation through weed control, predator eradication, translocation of birds and reptiles, revegetation and habitat and site manipulation. Problem weeds are
Lantana camara,
Opuntia vulgaris,
Leucaena leucocephala,
Desmanthus virgatus and
Furcraea foetida.
Rattus rattus is (1998) abundant on both islands (despite an eradication attempt on Gabriel Island in 1995), while Flat Island also has
Mus musculus and cats. Additional threats to native wildlife (including any species marooned in future) are similar to those on Gunner’s Quoin: invasion by exotic animals and plants (including reinvasion after eradication), poaching (for seabirds), cyclones and possibly diseases.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Flat and Gabriel Islands (Mauritius). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/flat-and-gabriel-islands-iba-mauritius on 22/12/2024.
